I’ve been divinqing with groups of young people for nearly 10 years. I remember my first divinq, it was special. I watched Philip Patston transform a nervous giggling of year 9-10 students into a thoughtful reflective exploration of difference. That was the moment I knew I was seeing something unique.

But every divinq since then has been amazing, each and every conversation. Even if similar ideas repeat, they come back in new ways, through different people. And the laughter shared, when trying to understand the incomprehensible and knowing what we don’t know, keeps me feeling thankful for 10 years of thinking with so many creative, intuitive and brilliant young people and gives me hope for The Matrix to be reprogrammed.

Every thought is energy and matter is energy, thinking is movement and divinq is a dance in the universe. I’m enjoying the music, each idea a note. I want to thank all of my dance partners over the last 10 years – we’ve all learned new steps, tripped on ideas and perhaps stood on each others’ toes from time to time, but kept going.

If divinq has taught me one thing, it’s that people talking and being with each other is important. The clumsy, chaotic, random, real world of difference is beautiful and delicious.

When I finish divinqing I always feel like I’ve had a great workout and it can take a while to come back to reality, although that is always slightly different after a session. If you’ve every put your body through something physically intense the next couple of days you feel it and can wonder if it was worth it. But people say ‘no pain no gain’ and while I think this is sort of true for divinqing it’s important to feel safe and ready to ‘do down the rabbit hole’.

So here are a few divinqing guidelines I have been playing with, and anyone who has participated is welcome to comment, or even if you haven’t and would like to inquire more please do:

1: We all have a unique perspective on the world, however, we are often more critical of others perspectives. GUIDELINE – it takes time to understand what shapes our perspective – and it is constantly changing so divinqing is never a finished process. Sometimes it is less about being right or wrong but about understanding how, why and where did this idea come from. How do I know what I know? How do I know what I don’t know? Warm down tip: try stretching one idea at a time.

2: There are more than two sides to things: One of the habits of thinking about anything is usually setting up a two-sided argument. GUIDELINE – when encountering a two sided idea about anything be curious about the effect of that on what people are able to know about themselves, or others. Try shifting the focus of a debate onto the assumptions behind the debate. What supports these assumptions? How do they impact on people’s lives now and in the past? Warm down tip – hold these conversations or debates lightly and not for too long.

3: There are perspectives and ideas that remain hidden. Perhaps this is one of the more challenging workouts. It’s important to know that ignorance is not just the absence of knowledge, that there are ways of building the truth and making some forms of knowing invisible or not worthy of value. GUIDELINE – if you are absolutely certain of something, look for what support you to be certain, be willing to put all knowledge into question, even things you think might be proven to be true. Warm down tip – skip through something familiar to you and notice how you came to know that concept, idea, value, belief.

4: The world is complex, and sometimes the issues and concerns can seem overwhelming and too hard to fix. Sometimes people expect that taking it seriously means you have to commit to a life of shouting, protesting and getting people to see what you see. GUIDELINE: Have fun with the contradictions, play with your own awareness of the irony in the world, find others who are also hinting at the same ideas, and create small networks of support. A good sign you are getting there is finding the incongruity and noticing the strange irony that might appear. Sometimes humour is a good way to open people up to an ‘aha I hadn’t thought of that’ moment. Warm down tip – laugh at yourself!

5: Fear of the unknown is one of the biggest obstacles to ‘thinking outside the box’ – or even knowing where the box is! GUIDELINE: Like rock climbing tackle stuff that is challenging but doesn’t feel impossible. Exploring challenging ideas isn’t always about getting to the top. Warm down tip – work on finding your balance point around fear of difference. Listen and recognise your own vulnerability and make friends with it.

So happy training, my favourite warm down is watching science fiction or comedy that gets me thinking. See you at our next boot camp – ready to bust Plato’s cave right open. Or light some fires in there and cast some new patterns on the walls.

I’ve played sport all my life. When I push my body it hurts. I feel my muscles burn, I sweat and I breath faster. It’s also known that this is the only way to improve the functioning of some of our bodies systems, especially the cardiovascular. Schools even have subjects like PE and sport-science that focus on the knowledge that explains and teaches how to develop and train the body. Some schools even do tests of physical fitness – you know the ones – like the beep test, 12-minute run, that sort of thing. Not everyone likes being tested, but you can test yourself and get a bit of a comparison if you want to. Some people really go for it and I’ve seen students cheer their classmates on as they get to the line and turn, clearly struggling, then collapsing. Others just bail at the first sign of discomfort, and there are always a few who seem to always miss the test. That is diversity at work and it’s great.

Some schools even do tests of physical fitness – you know the ones – like the beep test, 12-minute run, that sort of thing. Not everyone likes being tested, but you can test yourself and get a bit of a comparison if you want to. Some people really go for it and I’ve seen students cheer their classmates on as they get to the line and turn, clearly struggling, then collapsing. Others just bail at the first sign of discomfort, and there are always a few who seem to always miss the test. That’s diversity at work and it’s great.

But what about ideas, thinking-fitness? How do we know and recognise when we get out of our comfort zone? Do schools provide a variety of ways to do this, develop different kinds of fitness? I’m sure they do to some degree, but sometimes I wonder if the kinds of exercises schools use are ones from the 1950’s. Sure, they’ll get you so far but they’ll mainly work big muscle groups in one way (I’m over generalising).

Similar to physical workouts, it’s also a little bit uncomfortable to go beyond what you know or think you know, or to even think in a new way! Diversity Inquiry conversations are like ‘boot camp for thinking’, but sometimes it is hard to know what your baseline fitness is. On Saturday I “divinqed” with a group of year 13 students who showed incredible determination to stay with really challenging ideas about the history of enlightenment and western thinking, their limits and what has been left in the shadows. How our understanding of identity is limited by labels and language that tends to put things into two sides. And how some of the organisations in society, that we just accept as working in people’s best interest, might not actually work for a lot of people.

Divinqing creates doubt, uncertainty and disorientation. Tt can feel like reality is crumbling. I suppose it is like when Morpheus explains The Matrix to Neo the first time, Neo ‘wants out’ because it’s overwhelming. He hangs in there and recognises that, when he is in The Matrix, he can move through it differently, in a similar way as before but he’s able to resist certain programmmes and see the ‘code’ more and more. He pushes his skills through encounters with agents and others and each time he changes. It’s not ignorance that is bliss anymore – or staying in the dark of the cave (to use Plato’s analogy) – but knowing it is not solid or set in stone is the new bliss.

Maybe divinq is a purple pill. It is certainly flexing more than just the mind. Looking forward to working out with this group again soon.

So it’s Pink Shirt Day tomorrow. It occurred to me just how much meaning the colour pink has gained over the years. Wearing a pink shirt tomorrow is replicating the act of solidarity shown by a bunch of mates when their mate had homophobic comments made after he wore a pink shirt.

That’s probably the bit that is missed, the action of solidarity after because I think it is a little unrealistic to think that wearing a pink shirt tomorrow is solidarity, I think symbolic and that’s not quite the same thing. I like the word solidarity – it has ‘solid’ in it….and ‘arity’ but that’s not really a word. To be firm, grounded, real, present…to matter. Because people could wear a pink shirt tomorrow and challenge no-one about mocking people for being gay. Solidarity doesn’t need a shirt it needs action…from everyone…pink or no pink shirt.

Actually, it would be good to destigmatise the colour pink and not have it attached to gender or sexuality, so if anything we need to think where we see and don’t see pink. Let’s put pink in its rightful place, back in nature and not on every single girl’s toy (if there is such a thing) and bit of clothing…toothbrush…hair brush….you get my point.

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Jeannie, Philip and Sam are back, discussing their thoughts on 2017, complacency and striving to get better, the complexities of privilege invoking shame and guilt, the slow progress of media representation, and humour.